Jenny Dang The Weaver
(or “Musselborough”)
At Willie’s weddin’ o’ the green,
The lasses, bonnie witches,
Were busked out in aprons clean,
And snaw-white Sunday mutches;
Auld Mysie bade the lads tak’ tent,
But Jock wad na believe her;
But soon the fool his folly kent,
For Jenny dang the weaver.
In ilka country dance and reel
Wi’ her he wad be babbin’;
When she sat down, then he sat down,
And till her wad be gabbin’;
Where’er she gaed, or butt or ben,
The coof wad never leave her,
Aye cacklin’ like a clockin’ hen,
But Jenny dang the weaver.
Quoth he, my lass, to speak my mind,
In troth I needna swither,
Ye’ve bonnie e’en, and, gif ye’re kind,
I needna court anither!
He humm’d and haw’d, the lassie cried “pheugh,”
And bade the coof no deave her,
Syne crack’d her thumb, and lap and leugh,
And dang the silly weaver.
The above song was written by Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck (1775–1822),
son of the Johnsonian biographer James Boswell.
One of the elegant literati, Boswell wrote a number of poems,
the best known being his variation on “Jenny’s Bawbee”, “Good Night, and Joy Be wi’ Ye A’”
and “Bannocks o’ Barley Meal” (See “Argyll’s Fancy”).
He set up a private printing press on his estate
and reprinted various rare works preserved in the Auchinleck Library.
He was a member of Parliament for Ayr and Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ayrshire Yeomanry Cavalry.
It was Boswell who masterminded the erecting of the monument to Robert Burns
that stands on the banks of the Doon at Alloway.
A political conservative,
Boswell had published in a Glasgow newspaper a poetic satire
against James Stuart of Dunearn, a leading Edinburgh liberal.
Incensed by Boswell’s sarcasm,
Stuart challenged the author to a duel which took place at Auchtertool in Fife
and which resulted in Boswell’s death from a pistol shot.
The tune is supposed to have been composed about 1746 by a Mr Gardner,
minister of the parish of Birse in Aberdeenshire,
who was also something of a musician.
As he was playing one of his own compositions on his fiddle one evening
his attention was diverted by a heated altercation between his wife and the manse handyman,
formerly a weaver.
When he saw his enraged wife beating the handyman with a kitchen utensil,
he named his new tune “Jenny Dang the Weaver”.
This is an apocryphal, albeit amusing, story since the tune dates well before 1746.
It was used by Allan Ramsay for “O Mither dear, I gin to fear”
in William Thomson’s
Orpheus Caledonius
, 1733 edition.
As to the second title, “Musselborough”, a humorous old song to the tune of “Jenny Dang the Weaver”,
is found in David Herd’s
Ancient and Modern Songs
, published in 1776, which begins:
As I came in by Fisherraw,
Musselburgh was near me;
I threw my mussel-pock aside,
And courted wi’ my dearie.
Up stairs, down stairs,
Timmer stairs fear me;
I thought it lang to lie my lane,
When I’m sae near my dearie.
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)